TYPES OF AGREEMENTS 

Horizontal agreements: mean those agreements that are concluded between competing undertakings (between producers or wholesalers) operating on the same economic level. The agreement between the undertakings relating to goods and / or services and affecting a market within Kosovo is prohibited to the extent that it limits the party's freedom to impose third party charges or any essential conditions in the agreements concluded with the parties the third.

Vertical agreements: mean those agreements between undertakings operating at different levels of the market.

PROHIBITED AGREEMENTS

LAW NO. 03 / L-229 ON PROTECTION OF COMPETITION ARTICLE 4 "PROHIBITED AGREEMENTS"

All agreements between two or more independent undertakings, decisions taken between associations of undertakings and concerted practices that are intended or may significantly affect the distortion of trade competition in the relevant market, and in particular agreements, are prohibited especially those that:

•   directly or indirectly impose purchase or sale price or any other condition in trade
•    limit or control production, market, technological development and investment
•    share markets or supply sources
•    implement unequal conditions for similar transactions with other enterprises, consequently placing them in an unfavorable competitive position.
•    apply conditions for agreements on contracts to rely on other contracting subjects, through other supplementing conditions that do not have any natural or common trade practice connection to the object of such contract

EXEMPTIONS AND ALLOWANCES

Horizontal agreements, especially agreements the objective of which is rationalization or specialization of economic activity, researching and developing products or processes, joint purchase or sale of products from one single source, may be exempt from prohibition set forth in Article 4, of this law, due to economic efficiency.

The agreement is justified by economic efficiency if the following conditions are fulfilled:

   reduction of production or distribution costs, improvement of efficiency, improvement of products or production processes, encouragement of research for development and dissemination of technical or professional knowledge, rational exploitation of resources or encouragement of  the development of small and medium enterprises

   more direct participation of consumers or users in these advantages

    not significantly limit competition

 Vertical agreements may be exempted from prohibited agreements set forth in Article 4 of this law due to economic efficiency, especially agreements the objective of which is:

  to limit direct contact sales within an exclusive territory or against a group of exclusive clients, reserved for the supplier itself or another distributor authorized by the supplier, if such an agreement does not restrict sales of the distributor’s clients

  to limit sales to end users by the distributor that is engaged in whole trade level activities;

   to limit sales to unauthorized distributors from members of a single distribution system, in which supplying enterprises, directly or indirectly, sell contracted products to distributors selected based on specified criteria

   to limit the distributors’ right to sell component parts to clients, who use the same for production of products similar to that of the supplier

APLICATION AND ALLOWANCE OF EXEMTION

The Authority may allow an exemption of this law relating to a special agreement, if:

   it received an application for exemption which is compatible with the requirements set forth in Article 9 paragraph 2 of this article;

   it has reviewed the application concerned and investigated issues addressed in the application, and;

   it has concluded that the criteria for exemption have been fulfilled.

Small Value Agreements